Desperation Creek winds through stark, high desert country once known for cattle ranching. But a dying way of life means police are spread too thin, empty roads are bordered only by rusting barbed wire fences and sagebrush, and memories of the glory days barely keep desperation at bay.

After her painful childhood spent in Fort Halleck, Oregon, Cassie Ward longed to escape. Yet when her father needs her after he has a stroke, she reluctantly returns to take over the county's weekly newspaper. An anonymous caller promises her a "real" story if she'll go see a cattle rancher…who she finds brutally murdered. Cassie complies when Sheriff Grant Holcomb demands she hold back horrific details from her reporting, but when the body count rises, she becomes determined to uncover the truth—whether the sheriff likes her involvement or not.

Grant had been grateful to return home after a seventeen year absence. He's seen too much death overseas and as a big city cop, but times have changed even here. He's falling in love with a woman who is not only still desperate to escape the town he sees as home, she has a dangerous connection with a madman using her to ensure headlines for his killing spree. Are the deaths related to the revolt against federal control of large swaths of western lands? Or is this killer motivated by long-boiling resentment that overflowed once, like Cassie and Grant, he came home again? And if so, what part will they play in his deadly plan?